I have to admit I love it how things work out sometimes. I’m a Citibank PremierMiles fan, and I have been one since November 2011. We’ve had a little bit of our love hate in 2012, but I’ve come to terms with it and moved on to live with the new reality ever since. Now, I’ve earned a lot of PremierMiles over the years, but the only true redemption I’ve made has been last year, when I flew Singapore Airlines LAX-SIN-BOM in Business Class with them. Otherwise, the PremierMiles just lie in my account, and I transfer them whenever needed, since they never expire. Anyhow, so, last month I finally decided to apply for the Prestige, which I’ve loved since…
So how long does it take to upgrade an AAdvantage account again?
That is the question I am looking for an answer for, seems I can’t find it. See, I started with American Airlines AAdvantage program a few years back, and I’ve been an Executive Platinum for two years in a row. Last year, hardly travelled with them, and also this was the year they killed their policy for a soft landing, so I went straight to Member level as of March 1, 2014. Sigh, as much as I hate to let it go, I love my AAdvantage miles too much and also the program. I think it is one of the best out there in terms of mileage value. So i decided to see if I could crawl back from being…
Jet Airways nickel and dimes me for INR 50
I’m not a sucker for excess payments to any sort of travel and hospitality providers, yet, this past weekend I saw myself shelling out about a whole INR 50 to Jet Airways for no good reason. <Rant> You see, a couple of years back Jet Airways had this very nice idea that they should be charging customers for delivering printouts of the ticket at the airport. Maybe they were overburdened with these requests, and hence it made sense at that point of time. For the uninitiated, at a point of time it used to take the inspection of a hard copy of the ticket/boarding pass for same day travel, along with a Photographic ID document to access any airport in…
Have you won yourself our birthday giveaway?
Earlier this week, I realised a bit late that it was the blog’s birthday, and I decided to open up a small giveaway for all of you for your continuous support to this blog over the past 3 years. I asked you a simple question… your favourite post from the past three years? I got some common threads in the reply: My proposal in Paris planning trip My 2014 Credit Card Strategy Comparison of the best mileage-earning credit cards in India Goa Park Hyatt Review AwardWallet, of course At random, from the 35 entries received, I chose a winner with Random.org And the winner is Vivek, who said: Ajay,I am considering getting myself a Citibank Prestige card, and therefore my…
JetPrivilege changes mileage earning w.e.f. August 1, 2014
Yesterday, I had a lot of highs and lows throughout the day, specially, when Jet Airways almost gutted the international redemption chart, and then withdrew their act later, commenting that it was a mistake and genuine enhancements are coming to the program. Jet Airways was the first domestic airline to offer 100% miles on domestic sectors, a move they initiated in 2012, and offers these on all fare classes except maybe one. Air India has still not followed suit, and they frequently offer 25-50% of flown miles on most fare classes except the highest ones. Anyhow, after yesterday’s snafu, I got a mailer last night, which I’m sure a lot more members would have also received. This discussed the new…
JetPrivilege clarifies: Enhancements are in, gutting is out
This afternoon, I wrote about the changes to the Jet Airways frequent flyer program JetPrivilege, which was recently bought over by Etihad as a part of their investment in Jet Airways. Subsequent to the post, this evening, I heard from Manish Dureja, who now heads the JetPrivilege company, and explained to me the changes and the perspective to the changes. First and foremost, he clarified that the changes are not going to be all negative, but mostly positive for the customer. He explained that while they’ve been intending to do a lot over the years, he has been working with his team over the past 3 years to overhaul the program, which now looks possible given they are a loyalty…
Breaking: Jet Airways redemption award chart gutting without any notice!
Update: Jet Airways came back with a clarification. Check here. The ball has dropped. This is unofficial but a developing story. Okay, enough for the sensationalism. This morning, I was playing around with the Jet Airways website, trying to tuck in a redemption or few. I hadn’t gotten in on their up to 50% off sale fare, so I wanted to make some redemptions to go places. I noticed that there are changes in the award chart. Get some water, gulp it down, and then lets go over the changes till the end. Domestic Redemptions: Between –30 to +20% miles in most cases from October 2014 Here is a link to the old redemption chart. While I did not manage…
Flight Review: Indigo, Economy. Mumbai – Jaipur,
Everyone who reads this blog knows I am a Jet Airways loyalist on the domestic sectors, and I do fly Air India from time to time as well. I just see more value out of flying a full-service carrier, as long as reliability is not in question. For a flyer with erratic schedules like me, it is important to be able to use the lounge to get some work done pre-flight if possible, and sometimes the only meals I eat are on the plane, so yes, they are important. I recently decided to get back on Indigo after a very long time, maybe about 3 years or so. I just wanted to see what’s new and what is consistent in…
It seems AwardWallet is popular, some upgrade codes then!
Yesterday, I put out a birthday note for all of you. There is a return present as well for one of you in there. I asked you all: Leave me a comment on this post about what has been your favourite post(s) from my postings over the past three years, and why? Now, going through the comments on that post, apart from the fact that everyone has gotten obsessed with Citibank PremierMiles due to my fandom of them, the other most popular item out there is AwardWallet. I’ve done AwardWallet upgrade giveaways in the past, but seems it goes out like hotcakes. For those of you who don’t know, AW is a website that allows me to track my points…
Happy birthday to us! Let us reward you!
Oy! I am extremely apologetic I forgot my own blog’s birthday from last week! We turned 3 last Monday, and I just wanted to thank all of you for your hard work in earning your miles and travel feathers in India, and making us a part of your journey along. The journey, is the reward! Like I’ve said before, I started this blog to put out my travel experiences with miles and points, with a focus on the Indian miles and points space. And I think the timing was about right. When I popped up on the blogosphere in 2011, there were a lot of travel blogs about India, but nothing that focussed on travel loyalty, aspirational travel and how…
Lounge Review: Plaza Premium Lounge (Domestic), Bangalore Airport
There have been two major issues I’ve had with the Bangalore BIAL Airport for as long as I remember. Having used the airport based inside the city, I find the current airport too far away, and one can’t predict travel times to the airport since you can only go by the road. The other one was, the lack of a lounge for most airlines, except for Kingfisher Airlines. Then, they rebranded the Kingfisher Airlines lounge as the Pause Lounge. However, it looks like the troubles for accessing lounges in Bangalore Airports may now be over. As of March this year, Plaza Premium opened up a couple of lounges at Bangalore, one at the Domestic side of the terminal, and one…
